Nisei WWII Veterans

Me·mo·ri·al Day : [noun] : a day on which those who died in active military service are remembered.

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Here,

several years ago on Veteran’s Day in November,

at Tahoma National Cemetery,

about twelve Japanese American WWII Veterans were honored

for their sacrificial service in the US military

to protect and defend our country.

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I took a number of shots of these gentlemen,

all in my father’s generation,

(also a WWII Veteran and buried in this cemetery).

I thought they all were very proud and dignified,

and deserved to be honored publicly

as all veterans do.

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Because this was taken several years ago,

I have no idea how many of them may still be living,

I do regret not asking their names.

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I recently found out a friend

I went to school with through the tenth grade,

whose family is Japanese American,

both her mother and father were incarcerated in interment camps during the war.

Her parents met in the camp in Minidoka, Idaho

and her father was drafted into the Army

and served in OSS

(Military Intelligence).

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I wonder how many of these men volunteered

or were drafted out of those camps to proudly serve their county?

To have incarcerated over 100,000 west coast Japanese Americans

in camps was a shameful act of the government.

In the 1970s, President Jimmy Carter under pressure

from the Japanese American Citizens League opened an investigation

into the issue of whether the US government had just cause to

inter Japanese Americans in camps.

The commission found little evidence of disloyalty and

reparations were paid to survivors.

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